Garrett McNamara: The Guinness World Record Big Wave Explorer.

As a big wave surfer, Garrett McNamara can look back on countless superlatives in his long career. He continues to hold the Guinness World Record for this high-performance discipline, the standards of which extend far beyond the norm: No one has been able to beat his riding of a 30-metre wave in 2013.

The extreme athlete refers to the sea as his church and his playground. His strong affinity for water has taken him all around the globe for decades. But McNamara is not the type of champion that shows up at some neatly arranged competition. For him, big-wave-surfing is all about exploring new and exciting places. And this is how Nazaré, a small town at the Portuguese coast, became a world-renowned big wave surf spot and eventually was put in the centre of the world’s attention after McNamara’s Guinness World Record performance.

GMAC, as McNamara is called in the surfing scene, does also not hesitate to venture out to the most remote locations, even surfing ice-cold glacier waves in Alaska amid towering icebergs up to 90 metres high. He has courageously, unconditionally, and relentlessly pushed the limits in his sport with phenomenal visions and pioneering spirit. For decades, McNamara has also been exemplary in advancing its technical requirements.

For the construction of his high-tech board, he took innovative materials from the aviation industry and developed special designs for wetsuits that have already saved his life in tempestuous waters on the Portuguese coast. The extreme surfer and Mercedes-Benz ambassador also passionately supports worldwide projects for socially disadvantaged children.